Whats The Difference?

[manticle]

Draught beer denotes beer brewed and stored in the traditional way, maturing naturally in the cask and served unpasteurised from the cask rather than from a bottle or can. Lager, which comes from the German 'lagern' (to store), is beer which is pasteurised and stored for longer periods in the casks and eventually bottled.

Draft - Draft beer is a recognized form of tasty, refreshing and flavorful beer on tap from a keg system.
Lager is a type of beer such as ales, pilsner and stouts to bitters, cream ales and iced beers
Lagers are bottom-fermented

Where did you get the above from? Some of it is kind of a bit right, some of it is way off.

draught = beer from a tap. Commercial example - anything from a tap (including lagers)
lager - beer fermented with a bottom fermenting yeast which usually work better at cooler temperatures. Traditionally lagered or stored cold/cool for a good length of time. Commercial example - almost all mainstream australian beers with the exception of some coopers and most of james squire's range
Ale beer fermented with top fermenting yeast, usually a bit warmer although some ales are fermented close to high end lager temps. Commercial example - James Squire (except pilsner and sundown lager), coopers sparkling, pale, stout and dark ale, guiness.

Colour is irrelevant, pasteurisation is irrelevant although most commercial lagers tend to be pale.

The beer you are brewing fasty will be technically ale as you are brewing with an ale yeast (yes even the one called lager)

Forget about the waste - if you are careful you only need to take a 2 or 3 measurements - that's 600mL out of 23 litres - better than wasting the whole batch becasue all your bottles blew up. Putting your hydrometer in the fermenter can be done - I did when I first started. However I wouldn't recommend it. Hard to read, easy to infect the beer and easy to break the whole thing in the beer (which means chucking the lot).

Get a sample vessel, use the instrument how it should be used.

 

[np1962]

Forget about the waste - if you are careful you only need to take a 2 or 3 measurements - that's 600mL out of 23 litres - better than wasting the whole batch becasue all your bottles blew up. Putting your hydrometer in the fermenter can be done - I did when I first started. However I wouldn't recommend it. Hard to read, easy to infect the beer and easy to break the whole thing in the beer (which means chucking the lot).

Get a sample vessel, use the instrument how it should be used.

What waste? Drink the samples!

 

[manticle]

Well I always taste mine to see how they are going but not everyone's a winner. Fermentation throws some funky flavours.

 

[Silo Ted]

I suspect the Op is on the piss today.

To speculate on the origin of the term Draught may mean to pull, similar to a draughthorse. So a beer that is pulled from a large vessel such as a cask or a keg directly into the serving glass. By all accounts this term could be used for any tap beer, where it be a lager/pilsener or an ale. Calling bottled beer a draught is probably not quite correct despite the wide usage of the term in beers like Carlton and Tooheys.

 

[Gavo]

Next weeks topic.. "Why are my bottles exploding" by fasty73

hahahahahaha!!! Thats funny..... I hope!!!!

Nope, not funny but serious. Most kit beer, from my experience of the old days of fermenting at 27 degrees C (yes a lot of us did it because that was the instruction on the can), finish at around 1008 which means at 1016 it has not yet finished fermenting. This plus the fact that you add sugar or dextrose to the bottle for priming means that you have a potential for over-carbonating and as a result exploding bottles. My experience of this was with apple cider and not realizing that it took longer to ferment. I had glass everywhere under the house. Just a good thing no one was standing next to them when they went off.


Gavo

 

[np1962]

Nope, not funny but serious. Most kit beer, from my experience of the old days of fermenting at 27 degrees C (yes a lot of us did it because that was the instruction on the can), finish at around 1008 which means at 1016 it has not yet finished fermenting. This plus the fact that you add sugar or dextrose to the bottle for priming means that you have a potential for over-carbonating and as a result exploding bottles. My experience of this was with apple cider and not realizing that it took longer to ferment. I had glass everywhere under the house. Just a good thing no one was standing next to them when they went off.


Gavo

I was being rather flippant with my post, could quite possibly be a REAL problem for you as Gavo points out.
You really need to have some idea of what your FG should be and then ensure you have a stable reading over 3 days Before you bottle.
Lots for you to learn fasty, lots and lots.

 

[pk.sax]

It seems like such a waste to take a sample and measure it.

I measured how much beer is drawn for a hydrometer sample, Just under 100 ml does it. For a normal size Hydrometer.
even if you take 10 samples over the course of fermenting (I hope you don't.. lol), thats a really small amount compared to the total volume.

My latest approach, pieced together based on suggestions and articles here on AHB - ~ midway through fermentation, take a hydrometer's worth of sample (100ml) and keep it in a flask/stubby with clingwrap and rubberband over the top and let it ferment in parallel to the main batch, just shaken more often and kept in living quarters so it brews at a higher temp. It will let you find out what final gravity it should settle at faster than the full fermenter gets to it and then you can leave your fermenter alone for a while based on how long it took your sample to ferment fully (Keep checking this sample every 1-2 days with a hydrometer).

 

[Silo Ted]

So a completely different cell count and life cycle would produce the same results? Im strongly doubting this method.

 

[pk.sax]

I'm just using said method to roughly predict what FG I should aim for (somewhat unknown fermentables in my brew )
PS: Different life-cycle, Yes.... but cell count... why? its taken mid fermentation from the original wort.

 

[Silo Ted]

No offense, but do you have any statistical data to back this method up?

You might have read a suggestion that spoke about a way to gauge a re-starting cycle, after a stuck fermentation. Over a typical brew cycle, I feel that this isnt a very accurate approach.

 

[pk.sax]

No, no statistical data there. Just putting two and two together (or trying, actually very happy to accept critique).

Basically, the thought is that around a week into primary (~ midway into fermentation) it's slowed down considerably and is going to go slow. So I took the sample at that point, hoping it would provide the closest approximate sugar profile to what will happen in the rest of the wort thereon. Only difference being that I swirl/shake it every so Oren when home. Basically, attempting to fully ferment out the sugar in that sample to see roughly where the main batch should finish. In the process. I can quit worrying about the fermenter and monitor my sample more closely.

 

[Hatchy]

Putting your hydrometer in the fermenter can be done - I did when I first started. However I wouldn't recommend it. Hard to read, easy to infect the beer and easy to break the whole thing in the beer (which means chucking the lot).

Get a sample vessel, use the instrument how it should be used.

I'm surprised you didn't take that opportunity to link to yr 1st post here, you normally do.

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum//ind...c=26165&hl=

 

[BjornJ]

No, no statistical data there. Just putting two and two together (or trying, actually very happy to accept critique).

Basically, the thought is that around a week into primary (~ midway into fermentation) it's slowed down considerably and is going to go slow. So I took the sample at that point, hoping it would provide the closest approximate sugar profile to what will happen in the rest of the wort thereon. Only difference being that I swirl/shake it every so Oren when home. Basically, attempting to fully ferment out the sugar in that sample to see roughly where the main batch should finish. In the process. I can quit worrying about the fermenter and monitor my sample more closely.

What you are doing is called the "Fast fermentation test" and allows the brewer to learn what the FG of that batch will be in a small sample before the main wort is finished fermenting.

So putting the hydrometer sample in a warm spot and shake around a bit is the right way to learn how fermentable the wort is. This could for instance be done to determine at what gravity you want to rack to secondary so you will have a little bit of fermentation going to create a CO2 blanket for protection.

(going without saying to sanitise any equipment used for fast fermentation test just as for the main batch)

One link discussing it in more detail is here: http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?t...st_Ferment_Test

thanks
Bjorn

 

[nzefactor]

Draught beer denotes beer brewed and stored in the traditional way, maturing naturally in the cask and served unpasteurised from the cask rather than from a bottle or can. Lager, which comes from the German 'lagern' (to store), is beer which is pasteurised and stored for longer periods in the casks and eventually bottled.

Draft - Draft beer is a recognized form of tasty, refreshing and flavorful beer on tap from a keg system.
Lager is a type of beer such as ales, pilsner and stouts to bitters, cream ales and iced beers
Lagers are bottom-fermented

draught = draft? Personally I've never seen 'draft' used on any beer packaging etc. Yank spelling?
'Carlton Lager'...sounds weird

Might be a good idea fasty73 if you use PET bottles for your beer until you work out the whole gravity reading thing. Just in case.

 

[pk.sax]

What you are doing is called the "Fast fermentation test" and allows the brewer to learn what the FG of that batch will be in a small sample before the main wort is finished fermenting.

So putting the hydrometer sample in a warm spot and shake around a bit is the right way to learn how fermentable the wort is. This could for instance be done to determine at what gravity you want to rack to secondary so you will have a little bit of fermentation going to create a CO2 blanket for protection.

(going without saying to sanitise any equipment used for fast fermentation test just as for the main batch)

One link discussing it in more detail is here: http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?t...st_Ferment_Test

thanks
Bjorn

Wow, thanks mate. That was an awesome link. I had been going on Manticle's article and advice about checking out stalled ferments with the fast ferment test as you pointed out but had adopted it more or less as a procedure to predict my fermentation rather than for only troubleshooting. Great to get some confirmation I'll give this another go at checking up on how well I'm able to make wort when I try AG brewing. That link seriously rocks thnx again.